Koenraad Swart, The Sense of Decadence in Nineteenth Century France (1)

Fin de siécle, 1877-1905

No other  period  in French history  has such  a well-established reputation for pessimism  as the so-called .fin de siécle [end of the century].As early  as  1878 Joseph Reinach   noticed    with   deep   concern  the  influence which [German philosophers] Arthur Schopenhauer  and  Eduard von  Hartmann  exerted   on  French intellectuals.3 In  188r  the republican  journalist Raoul  Frary complained: "La  decadence, ce mot  nous poursuit. Nous  le trouvons sur  les levres des indifferents, des  egoistes, comme  dans  la  bouche  des philosophes pessimistes,   des   vieillards   moroses,  des  vaincus  de  la  bataille  politique."4 [Decadence, this word pursues us. We find it on the lips of those who are indifferent, of egotists, in the mouths of pessimistic philosophers, of morose old men, of those defeated in the political struggle.] Foreign  observers came  to similar conclusions. The  Englishman John Bod ley,  who  spent  the  years  1890-1897 on  French soil  to collect material for  his  perceptive study   on  contemporary France, remarked  that an acute and  contagious pessimism had infected a large  proportion of  the French nation.5 A few  years  later  his  compatriot Charles Daw barn asserted  that  the French had  lost their  light­heartedness and  gaiety  at  Sedan [the location of a defeat in the Franco-Prussian War]  and  had  not recovered them since.6

Such  diagnosticians of  the  French mind  were  undoubtedly guilty of exaggeration. As will  be  pointed  out below,  the  great   majority of the French   nation and  even  a large  part  of the  intellectuals did  not suffer from excessive gloom,  but  it is true  that  during the last decades of the  nineteenth century  a  vocal,  if  not necessarily   representative segment of  the French population  consciously   and   often   proudly adopted a pessimistic  philosophy of life.

I

Much of  the  fin de  sickle  pessimism   had  its  origin  in  the  political conditions of  the   time.   It was  in  the first  place   the  international situation of  France that continued to  fill  many Frenchmen  with anxiety. Although France had recovered from  many  of the  wounds inflicted by the War  of r87o,  its rank among the  nations of  the world was no longer  as high as it had been in preceding centuries. Numerous French patriots were  convinced that  under the  new  republic the position   of  France,  far  from improving, was becoming progressively worse.  Even  many  Frenchmen  who   had   initially welcomed  the establishment of the Third Republic lost their confidence in the new regime when  the government seemed  to abandon any  thought of a war of revenge. They  reproached  the  republican  leaders for  playing   into the hands of Germany by wasting French military strength on futile colonial expeditions instead  of  concentrating  on the recovery Alsace-Lorraine. The opinion that  France  was  a  declining  power probably gained   widest  currency  around  the  turn   of  the   century when   serious   reverses   in  French  foreign   policy (the  Fashoda   a Tangiers crises)  caused   many  Frenchmen once again   to  despair their country's future. At  this  time  a  large number of  books,  pamphlets, and articles  as well as various opinion polls discussed  the topic of  the decadence of  France. Many critics  compared  the  deplorable condition of their country with that   of other "Latin" countries like Italy and  Spain, which also suffered  defeat  in their  foreign  policies the end  of nineteenth century. The entire Latin world,  it seemed many, was no longer  able  to compete with the more enterprising and superiorly  organized nations  of  Northern Europe and the Unite States and was therefore doomed to decadence.